Pesticide scam left homes
to termites By SIMON LOMAX
18dec99 The Courier-Mail

FOUNDATIONS of more than 5000 new
homes in Brisbane may have been sprayed
with water instead of pesticide, leaving them
defenceless against termite attack.

The state's building watchdog is investigating
claims that a pest controller
employed by the Guardian firm was selling company
pesticides on the black
market.

It is alleged the pest controller sprayed home
foundations with water to make it
look like he was doing his job.

Building Services Authority general manager Matt
Miller said an affidavit had been
supplied to him by the Forest Lake- based Termite
Action Group over the claim.

Mr Miller said BSA officers would meet Guardian
officials next week to arrange for
soil tests on some of the houses to check the
validity of the claims.

Guardian owner Percy Bartrum yesterday ordered the
pest controller to take leave
until the investigation was completed.

Mr Bartrum said he had not seen the detail of the
allegations and standing his
employee aside did not mean he believed the claims
were true.

But he pledged his "100percent support"
for the investigation.

Mr Bartrum said Guardian pest controllers would
each treat between 12 and 15 new
houses each week.

At that rate, the pest controller in question could
have treated between 5100 and
6400 new homes in the nine years he worked for the
company.

Mr Bartrum bought Guardian in October.

Former Guardian owner David Pearson pleaded guilty
in the Queensland Building
Tribunal to incompetently applying termite
treatments to a home in Moggill.

Mr Pearson will face the tribunalnext year on two
other counts of incompetent or
negligent practices allegedly committed while he
was the owner of Guardian.

A Building Services Authority spokesman said
several more pest control companies
also were due to appear in the tribunal next year
on similar charges.

Mr Bartrum said the practices in place at Guardian
before he took over could have
allowed an employee to sell company pesticides for
their own profit. "The missing
link was that the pest controller had control of
the chemical in its concentrated
form," he said.

Mr Bartrum said as soon as he took charge, the
guidelines were changed to make
his employees more accountable.

He said the pesticides were now put directly into
the company's vehicle-mounted
tanks in their diluted form, rather than giving
pest controllers drums of concentrate.

Mr Pearson said he was unaware of the allegations
and no one had raised them
with him while he owned Guardian.

But Mr Pearson said: "We had over 20 staff and
you've got to put your trust in
people to a degree. There is always a way around
things."

Mr Pearson said in the past three years, Guardian
had provided termite protection
to more than 20,000 homes.

"For the volume of work that we've done, there
haven't been too many problems,"
he said.